a star player and the world of goods: … · as two phenomena central to our social experience, ......

Everardo Rocha I

William Corbo II

i Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Postgraduate

Program in Communication, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

[email protected]

ii Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Postgraduate

Program in Communication, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

[email protected]

A STAR PLAYER AND THE WORLD OF GOODS: SOCCER AND CONSUMPTION IN THE PUBLIC IMAGE OF LEôNIDAS DA SILvA

THE GAME AND THE GOODS

In this article we analyse the place occupied by Leônidas da Silva1 in the ad-

vertising market and his impact on consumption patterns in the 1930s and

1940s, the period of his career as a footballer. Our aim is to investigate the forms

through which, in this context, consumption and the advertising narrative

capitalized on football as a way to expand purchasing habits and, in the same

movement, boost the popularity of the sport, as well as the interest and mobi-

lization surrounding it. Leônidas, a black player in an era notable for explicit

racial discrimination in football and in Brazilian society in general, was con-

sidered a celebrity, a frequent presence in reports and interviews that went far

beyond the limits of the sports press.2 His habits, his humble origins, the events

in his career, the polemics in which he became embroiled, the ‘brilliant’ displays

of skill and the ‘decisive’ goals were constantly reported by the printed press

– newspapers and magazines – and transmitted by the numerous radio broad-

casters. Like other celebrities, Leônidas opened stores, starred in adverts, be-

came the iconic face of diverse brands and lent his name to successful products,

like Leônidas watches and cigarettes, and Diamante Negro (Black Diamond)

chocolate, still sold today. The media’s construction of his public image provides

an insight into representations of the first sports celebrities in Brazil and, more-

over, reveals a model of articulation between football and consumption that,

conceived during this era, continues to permeate the contemporary imagination.

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a star player and the world of goods: soccer and consumption in the public image of leônidas da silvaso

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As two phenomena central to our social experience, football and con-

sumption evidently involve complex questions and open up a variety of differ-

ent paths for academic investigation. Seen separately, both possess a palpable

critical mass, the literature on consumption being more international, while

Brazilian studies tend to prevail on the topic of football, partly because of the

game’s local importance. Consumption and related topics like fashion and ad-

vertising, for example, present a long tradition of studies beginning with Veblen

(1965), Simmel (1904) and Sombart (1967), and followed by Lynd (1934, 1936),

Barthes (2003), Baudrillard (1993, 1991), Douglas & Isherwood (2004) and Sahlins

(1979), up to more recent authors like McKendrick, Brewer & Plumb (1982), Camp-

bell (2001), McCracken, (2003) and, in the Brazilian case, Rocha (1985).3 Studies

of football, despite the existence of works discussing the sociocultural impor-

tance of the sport in different contexts and countries (Duke, 1991; Armstrong

& Giulianotti, 1999; Hughson et al., 2017), was first discussed in the Brazilian

case by Freyre (1938, 2010). These studies continued with Guedes (1977), Mice-

li (1978), Araújo (1980), Rodrigues (1982) and DaMatta (1982, 2006) and include

later works by Helal (1997), Toledo (1996, 2000, 2002), Pereira (2000) and Hol-

landa (2004, 2010).

In the case of both themes, the studies cited above are mostly identified

with the social sciences, particularly anthropology and sociology, since myriad

works have been published on the two subjects by journalists, players, novelists

and others, and listing them all would extend far beyond the limits of the pre-

sent article. What interests us more closely are those studies that examine the

relations between football and consumption, whether focused on questions of

sport as business (Damo, 2008, 2009, 2012), or on the specific issues surround-

ing major sporting events (Damo, 2011; Damo & Oliven, 2014) or on the interac-

tions between the game, the mass media and advertising narratives (Sodré,

1977; Gastaldo, 2002; Amaro, Helal, 2014; Helal et al., 2014).

Our work here adopts a different approach since it focuses especially on

the approximation between football and consumption from the viewpoint of

understanding how, in the first half of the twentieth century, these two phe-

nomena established a model of articulation through the advertising industry’s

recruitment of outstanding footballers, a process that saw the transformation

of these players from the ‘football world’ into stars of the ‘world of goods.’ In

this sense, the model first developed with Leônidas is emblematic since his

fame and prestige, the idolization that he provoked and his heroism, continu-

ally and incisively expressed in the media, provide an insight into this experi-

ence of constructing sports celebrities capable of mobilizing crowds and selling

all kinds of products and services, including the persistence of this same mod-

el today within much the same logical parameters.

To deepen the discussion on the articulations between football and con-

sumption through the example of Leônidas, this article is divided into three

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article | everardo rocha and william corbo

parts. In the first our idea is to explore some of the pivotal moments in the

player’s career and his consecration as Brazilian soccer’s biggest name and idol

in the first half of the twentieth century. In the second part we debate the role

of the sports press and the media in general in the construction of Leônidas’s

public image as a national hero and a representative of core elements of Brazil-

ian culture. Finally, we turn our attention to analysing how the football star

was transformed into a celebrity able to attract huge crowds, heavily influenc-

ing the social life of his time and working actively in the advertising market to

promote stores and sell products like cigarettes, watches and chocolate.

As a cultural and collective phenomenon wrapped in symbolism, con-

sumption gives meaning to social life and provides the codes that enable us to

comprehend and act in the world in which we live (Douglas & Isherwood, 2004).

Football, as a social drama (DaMatta, 1982), produces – along with its draws,

wins and defeats – narratives and myths capable of elaborating images of idols

and legendary heroes that fill the pages of the sports press and the media in

general. This article reveals some of the fundamental aspects of the emergence

of a model of articulation between consumption and football that has informed

purchasing practices and relations with the game to the present day. A detailed

look at the history of football in Brazil reveals how, even in the first decades of

the sports professionalization, the country’s players appeared frequently in

articles, special reports and interviews in newspapers and magazines and on

the radio. The football stars of the 1930s and 1940s generated huge amounts of

public interest. Idolized wherever they went, they drew large crowds and became

celebrities with a strong popular appeal. Despite being a black footballer in a

context of widespread racial discrimination, being polemical (or perhaps be-

cause of this) and having his attitudes continually criticized by many, Leônidas,

the leading player of this generation, was the country’s biggest sports celeb-

rity, capable of acting in the sphere of consumption and boosting the sales of

a range of products (Gordon, 1995).

A STAR IN THE FOOTBALL UNIvERSE

Born in 1913, in Rio de Janeiro, Leônidas began to display his skills with the ball

at his feet in the kickabouts played in the district of São Cristóvão, a suburb of

the city where he lived for most of his childhood and adolescence. In 1930, be-

fore completing the age of 17, he made his debut as a soccer player at Sírio Li-

banês, a modest club from the city’s Tijuca district. The following year, Leônidas

was taken by his former trainer at Sírio, Gentil Cardoso, to Bonsucesso, which

offered better conditions for him to develop his talent than at the previous club.

Despite failing to win the 1931 Rio Championship, Bonsucesso attracted consid-

erable attention for the outstanding performance of its players, finishing sev-

enth place in a competition that included teams of the renown of América,

Bangu, Botafogo, Flamengo, Fluminense and Vasco da Gama. At Bonsucesso,

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playing alongside other black players who would later become his team mates

in the Rio squad and Brazil’s national side, Leônidas’s talent became clearly ap-

parent to supporters and journalists, who boasted of the emergence of one of

the best prospects for Brazilian football (Pereira, 2000).

The year 1931 marked “definitively the name of Leônidas in the Brazilian

football setting. Despite playing for the modest Bonsucesso, he would soon be-

come known on all Brazil’s football pitches” (Ribeiro, 2010: 36). After the standout

performances for his club and winning the Brazilian Club Championship for Rio

de Janeiro, Leônidas was invited to wear the jersey of the Brazilian team in the

1932 Rio Branco Cup along with other players who, like him, had shone in the Rio

teams. Accompanied on the pitches by stars like Domingos da Guia, Oscarino,

Gradim and Jarbas, he led the national side in its historical win over Uruguay,

scoring both goals in Brazil’s 2-1 victory. Winning the 1932 Rio Branco Cup proved

to be a landmark in the history and self-esteem of Brazilian football, as well as a

watershed in the career of Leônidas, quickly identified as the team’s star player

and hero of the national squad (Pereira, 2000; Ribeiro, 2010).

The enthusiasm generated by winning the title was so great that on their

arrival back in Rio de Janeiro, the players were welcomed by a jubilant crowd

parading through the city’s streets. During the celebrations, driving in an open

car along Rio Branco Avenue, they were able to feel at close hand the warmth

of thousands of people cheering deliriously, Leônidas and Domingos in particu-

lar. From that moment, as champions of the Rio Branco Cup wearing the Brazil-

ian team shirt, the two black players and the Rio suburb became consolidated

as the major stars of the nation’s football:

Domingos and Leônidas, carried by the crowd at the moment they landed, were

the most celebrated. Applauded with ‘real enthusiasm’ by the supporters lining

the avenue in a display that ‘was as powerful as it was spontaneous,’ they attrac-

ted most of the attention and delirium of the fans. Recognized as legitimate

representatives of Brazil, they were greeted along with the other players by the

head of the provisional government himself, Getúlio Vargas – who, as the dele-

gation passed in front of the Catete palace, remained on the palace balcony

waving to the champions until the parade had passed by (Pereira, 2000: 324).

The success of players like Leônidas and Domingos prompted the wealthy

Uruguayan football clubs to spare no expenses in signing them. While the de-

fender agreed a transfer to Nacional and became a club idol, Leônidas signed a

contract to wear the Peñarol shirt. On December the 7th 1932, the Jornal dos Sports

reported Leônidas’s final words as he embarked for Uruguay: “Through Jornal dos

Sports I say my farewell to the Rio people and the enthusiastic ‘fans’ who I know

I’m going to miss.” At the new club, he found it very difficult to adapt. He was hit

by a series of injuries and his performance failed to match expectations, since

“the freedom granted to players by Uruguayan clubs [...] was a problem for Leô-

nidas, who, in order to keep fit in Brazil, had needed to be kept under constant

surveillance”4.

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Returning to Brazil in 1934, he agreed a contract with Vasco da Gama,

who, in addition to Leônidas, invested in the hiring of other highly successful

black players like Fausto – the ‘Black Marvel’ – and later Domingos himself.

Leônidas stayed at Vasco da Gama for a short time only, since amid the political

dispute between amateurism and professionalism in Brazilian football, he de-

cided to sign with the Brazilian Sports Federation (Confederação Brasileira de

Desportos: CBD) to play for the national team at the 1934 World Cup, held in It-

aly.5 After a terrible preparation (Pereira, 2000; Ribeiro, 2010), the team was

eliminated in the first match after a 1-3 loss to Spain. Scorer of Brazil’s only goal,

Leônidas managed to stand out amid the disastrous Brazilian campaign and

showed glimpses of the football that would enchant the world four years later.

After the World Cup, Leônidas began to wear the jersey of Botafogo, the

club with whom he established himself as a star by winning the Rio champion-

ship in 1935. Despite the title, Leônidas became involved in public polemics with

the Botafogo directors and suffered from the strong racial prejudice, which led

to the fact that, at most of the big clubs, directors and fans were opposed to the

presence of black players in their sides (Gordon, 1995; Pereira, 2000; Souza, 2008;

Ribeiro, 2010). Unhappy at Botafogo and at war with the directorate, he was sold

to Flamengo, which planned to assemble a powerful team for the 1936 season

and end an eight-year drought without winning the Rio championship. The ar-

rival of the Diamante Negro (Black Diamond)6 at Flamengo was greeted with

enthusiasm by the club’s already huge fanbase, by widespread press coverage,

by the anxiety of the club directors, and by expectations concerning his future

relationship with the trainer Flávio Costa, famed for taking a hard line with

players. At his new club, Leônidas met up again with former team mates like

Jarbas, Fausto and Alfredinho. In a short while, Flamengo had managed to “reu-

nite Rio de Janeiro’s most famous trio of black players: Domingos, Leônidas and

Fausto” (Ribeiro, 2010: 101). Over the following years, Leônidas showcased his

skills and led Flamengo in memorable games in the Rio Championship, espe-

cially against Fluminense, whose team featured top players from São Paulo, like

Hércules, Romeu, Lara, Batatais, Ozorimbo and Russo (Ribeiro, 2010).

Flamengo’s success, the magic of his talent with the ball at his feet, the

fame and social prestige all helped generate huge expectations for the player’s

performance at the 1938 World Cup, hosted in France. This time the Brazil squad

was filled with the country’s best players and underwent preparation for the

event, trying to avoid the mistakes that had contributed to the failure four years

earlier. Brazil opened by beating Poland 6-5, drawing 1-1 with Czechoslovakia

and then beating the same team 2-1 to reach the semi-final against Italy. In the

decisive game, Leônidas, injured, stayed on the bench and watch Brazil’s defeat

by two goals to one – a result heavily questioned by the players and the sports

press due to refereeing errors (Pereira, 2000; Souza, 2008; Ribeiro, 2010). Disap-

pointed with their elimination, the Brazilian players beat Sweden 4-2 in the

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match for third place. As far as Leônidas’s performance in the World Cup was

concerned, all expectations were exceeded. Emerging as the tournament’s top

scorer and biggest star, he was celebrated as the hero in the Brazilian team’s

unprecedented and surprising third place. The Black Diamond was hailed as

“the best centre-forward in the world!”7 and acclaimed by the entire French

press. According to Raymond Thoumazeau, columnist of the magazine Match,

“This rubber man possesses the diabolical gift of being able to control the ball

lying down or in the air and shoots explosively when least expected.”8

Returning from the World Cup,9 Leônidas became established as the great-

est Brazilian footballer currently active (Ribeiro, 2010). In the same year he won

the Brazilian championship with the Rio squad (the Seleção Carioca). In 1939, he

led Flamengo to victory in the Rio Championship. The following year, however,

his relationship with the club began to unravel, his knee showed signs of strain,

and the fans became more impatient and mistrustful of their star striker. Despite

the criticism, Leônidas scored 30 goals in the 1940 Rio Championship. Later, in

1941, injured and immersed in disputes with the Flamengo directors, his contract

was suspended by the club. In the same year, he was convicted for illegalities on

his military certificate and spent time in prison in Vila Militar, where he was

idolized and admired as the country’s top footballer. After the spell in prison,

the fight with Flamengo became even more accentuated and frequently spilled

into the newspapers. The press would publish full-page reports, listing the

criticisms made by the directors concerning the player’s behaviour, and, on the

other side, Leônidas’s accusations against the club’s agents (Ribeiro, 2010).

The dispute with Flamengo ended in 1942 when Leônidas transferred to

São Paulo, the club for which he would play until the end of his career in 1949.

In his debut appearance, a match against Corinthians, his importance to Brazil-

ian soccer and his consolidation as a star with a huge capacity for social mo-

bilization were clearly apparent. More than 70,000 people packed the Pacaem-

bu stadium to watch the first game of the Black Diamond wearing the São

Paulo tricolour shirt, beating the stadium’s attendance record in the process

(Ribeiro, 2010). Between 1942 and 1949, Leônidas scored 144 goals in the São

Paulo jersey and won the São Paulo championship in 1943, 1945, 1946, 1948 and

1949. By the end of his career, though still considered the best player competing

on Brazil’s pitches, he was not selected by the coach Flávio Costa to dispute the

1950 World Cup held in Brazil. After the national team’s tragic loss to the na-

tional team to Uruguay at the Maracanã itself, many said that had Leônidas

been playing, history would have turned out differently.

Leônidas, the media and visions of paradise

Leônidas’s career unfolded in the context of intense political, economic and

cultural transformations in Brazilian society (Pandolfi, 1999; Fausto, 2006). In

1930, the year when he debuted as a football player, Getúlio Vargas rose to

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power through a successful revolutionary movement that had finally overcome

the logic of alternating power between mineiros (the cattle ranching elite from

Minas Gerais) and paulistas (coffee growers from São Paulo state) during the

period of the Old Republic – also jokingly known as the “republic of coffee with

milk.” Vargas would remain in command of the country, oscillating between

more democratic and more authoritarian conducts until 1945, when the Estado

Novo (New State) dictatorship came to an end. During this period, a nationalist

politics was implemented, labour laws instituted, state companies created, pub-

lic works funded and a particular national identity modelled and propagandized

incisively. In a nutshell, Getúlio Vargas sought to unify the country around a

collective project and an ideology that would unify all Brazil’s cultural diver-

sity in pursuit of the development of national society and, above all, the con-

struction of a specific national identity. In this process, State and football be-

came closely merged, the sport transformed into one of the main propaganda

elements for the Brazil project (Souza, 2008).

At diverse moments, the alliance between State and football became

clearly apparent. In 1935, for example, during the clash between clubs and

organisations that advocated amateurism on one hand and professionalism on

the other, the federal government intervened to create a harmonious setting

and unify the separate interests into a common project. In the same year, rep-

resentatives of the federal government began to closely accompany the devel-

opment of football in Rio de Janeiro city, setting rules and applying penalties

for clubs who breached their contracts with professional players (Pereira, 2000).

Then in 1936, in another instance of approximation between State and football,

the clubs asked the Vargas government once again to mediate between the

groups, clubs and associations that were clashing over the issue of profession-

alism or amateurism in Brazilian football. All these events showed the involve-

ment of the Brazilian presidency and the State’s broader interest in the direction

taken by Brazilian football (Pereira, 2000; Souza, 2008).

The transition process from amateurism to professionalism was funda-

mental to the increase in the number of black footballers playing for the big

clubs and for the Brazilian national side. The regulations introduced to profes-

sionalize soccer were also a way to “dissipate the racial prejudice and discrimi-

nations that surrounded players like Leônidas and Gradin” (Pereira, 2000: 325).

This was an important condition for augmenting the popularity of the game and

the quality of the show, and, moreover, for legitimizing the notion of a Brazil that

valorised its internal differences. As Gordon (1995) emphasizes, the influx of

black players into football did not end racial discrimination since the main clubs

would not allow them – now treated as remunerated employees – to frequent

their social areas. However, professionalization did create the space to minimize

preconceptions of racial inferiority. The increasing presence of black players like

Leônidas in the classic matches between the country’s top clubs and in the suc-

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cesses of the national team represented the idea of a harmonious Brazil, capable

of uniting distinct classes and groups around a common project.

In this movement, the sports press of the period, especially the journalist

Mário Filho, campaigned hard for the professionalization of the sport and for a

greater presence of black players in Brazilian soccer (Leite Lopes, 1994). While

Leônidas was gracing the nation’s pitches, the sports press was expanding at a

breath-taking pace and football invaded the newspaper pages, radio programs

and day-to-day conversations in the city. Since the end of the 1920s and the

advent of radio, football had reached an ever-widening public that had previ-

ously lacked any access to matches, events or information on the sport. In the

same period, the expansion of the specialized press was also significant. Accord-

ing to research conducted by the National Department of Trade, sports periodi-

cals leapt in number from five journals in 1912 to fifty-eight in 1930 (Souza, 2008).

Important publications emerged, like Jornal dos Sports, Rio Sportivo and Mundo

Esportivo, and the journalist Mário Filho became a prominent figure in football’s

development and expansion (Leite Lopes, 1994; Pereira, 2000; Souza, 2008).

In 1931, with Roberto Marinho taking command of the newspaper O

Globo, Mário Filho became responsible for its sports section and from that mo-

ment the talent of black players like Leônidas and Domingos was extolled in

the paper’s day-to-day coverage and special reports. Then in 1936, Mário Filho

bought Jornal dos Sports, founded five years earlier by Argemiro Bulcão. Under

his direction, the newspaper began to be printed on pink paper and transformed

into one of the main outlets of the national sports media. In 1938, together with

Roberto Marinho, he launched O Globo Esportivo. More than a journalist, Mário

Filho had become the main disseminator of football in Brazil and effusively

championed causes that valorised the presence of black players at the top clubs

and in the national side (Leite Lopes, 1994). For him, these players were the true

representatives of the Brazilian style of playing football (Rodrigues Filho, 2010).

Discussing Mário Filho, Pereira (2000: 331) emphasizes that:

Since 1931, the journalist had already emphasized in the pages of O Globo the “bewil-

dering mobility and rapid play” typical of players like Leônidas, recognized even by

his opponents. Like him, other columnists were focusing their attention in those

years on the first emergence of a “characteristically Brazilian technique of extremely

quick play and dazzling improvisation in the most tricky moments” – which distin-

guished the playing style of the Brazilian athletes from the technique and discipline

learnt from Europeans.

For journalists like Mário Filho, Brazilian football was seen as “equal in

power and art, if not superior, to the football played in both Argentina and

Uruguay” (Pereira, 2000: 331). In this context, the presence of black players,

previously seen as a “shameful defect of the sport practiced in the country”

(Pereira, 2000: 331) became glorified by the press as “the big differentiating

factor of Brazilian football – helping decisively in the creation of a national

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playing style” (Pereira, 2000: 332). Hence the sports journalism of the period,

led by Mário Filho, attributed the black footballers with characteristics that

configured what would become the specifically Brazilian way of playing soccer.

In the press narratives, idols like Leônidas and Domingos, for example, per-

sonified the most important and enchanting characteristics of Brazil’s football.

Along the same lines, an essential role was played by the sociology of

Gilberto Freyre, which takes Brazilian society to be marked by a series of eco-

nomic and cultural paradoxes – European and African culture, African and in-

digenous, Jesuit and farmer, master and slave, university educated and illiter-

ate. These paradoxes expose fundamental dilemmas, ambiguities, dualities and

divisions in Brazil’s culture. Faced with this antagonistic scenario, however, the

peculiar feature of Brazilian culture is the attempt to balance these opposing

forces, elaborating a positive mixture in which the oppositions are equilibrated

and contribute to the forming of an enriched culture (Araújo, 1994). For Freyre

(1975: 52): “Nowhere, perhaps, can we observe with equal freedom the encoun-

ter, intercommunication and even harmonious fusion of diverse or even an-

tagonistic cultural traditions as in Brazil.”

Turning to Brazilian football, he emphasizes the contributions of black

players to our particular way of playing the game, differing from the well-drilled

style of the British “to turn into the dance full of irrational surprises and Dio-

nysian variations that it is” (Freyre, 2010: 25). Domingos da Guia, for example,

had added “a bit of samba, a bit of Bahian molecagem and even a bit of Pernam-

bucu capoeira or Rio malandragem” (Freyre, 2010: 25), while Leônidas performed

a kind of Bahian dance on the pitch. This image of Brazilian football and the

depictions of Leônidas in the media can be summarized by Mário Filho’s nar-

ration of the goal scored by the forward in the match against Poland in the 1938

World Cup, when “Leônidas kneeling, tying his bootlace, the Polish keeper takes

the goal kick, Leônidas stands up, shoots the ball, goal to Brazil” (Rodrigues

Filho, 2010: 218). The representation was one of improvisation, trickery, mischief

and inventiveness in a pure state.

A CELEBRITY IN THE WORLD OF GOODS

Leônidas was the essential reference point in creating and sustaining a funda-

mental representation of a specifically Brazilian style of playing football – in-

ventive, naturally talented, improvised, full of genial heroes and national sav-

iours (Rocha, 2003) – which reinforces a certain desired image of Brazilian cul-

ture. In this sense, their exploits on the pitch wearing the shirts of the top clubs

and the national team, the events in their personal lives, their injuries, the

polemics and the transactions all formed part of the press routine of their time,

shaping the Brazilian cultural imaginary. With his incisive and constant pres-

ence in the media, Leônidas became firmly established as one of the most

important celebrities of the 1930s and 1940s. If “celebrities flaunt whatever a

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particular society, at a particular moment, valorises” (França, 2014: 25) and

football is a privileged space in which cultures talk about themselves (DaMat-

ta, 1982), the Black Diamond represented a particular contemporary interpreta-

tion of Brazil, emphasizing the positivity of mixture, which would mark a par-

ticular ideological vision of Brazilianness. As a media representation, therefore,

Leônidas helped construct an image of Brazil as a harmonious fusion of op-

posites, capable of overcoming differences and uniting the best of diverse worlds.

This Brazilian image persists even today, mobilized in advertising narratives

and the mass media, in products like soap operas, studio programs, interviews

and the press in general (Rocha, 2006).

During his career as a football player between the 1930s and 1940s, eve-

ryone wanted to talk about Leônidas; his popularity and capacity to attract

crowds led to the publication of innumerable reports on his life, habits and

behaviours that went far beyond soccer (Ribeiro, 2010). The newspaper O Globo,

among many other stories on the player, published “A ‘shoot’ in the bachelor

life,” reporting the marriage of Leônidas, which “included the presence of in-

numerable admirers of the popular footballer, noting among those attending

the president of the club [Flamengo], Mr. Bastos Padilha, as well as other direc-

tors.”10 In another report we learn the details of the player’s childhood at the

school where he studied, where he was known as a ‘ghost of the teachers.’11

Indeed, when they needed to sell newspapers and magazines or increase the

radio audiences, all of them talked about Leônidas:

The journalists relied on Leônidas to fill their copy. ‘The Black Diamond visiting our

offices.’ Visiting houses. Wherever the newspaper went, Leônidas went. The fan

would open the sports pages and there was Leônidas, smiling at him like an old

friend. The fan could cross his legs, recline in the chair, not even remove the tooth-

pick from his mouth to have a chat with the inventor of the bicycle kick. Completely

at home (Rodrigues Filho, 2010: 214).

Leônidas’s fame traversed barriers and surprised even those who had

followed his career closely. For the journalist Mário Rodrigues Filho (2010: 194-

195), the welcome given to the players who won the 1932 Rio Branco Cup il-

lustrates the fame and idolization of the striker Leônidas, who, though still

young at the time, already appeared as the biggest star of Brazilian football:

The CBD joined in with the tributes to Leônidas, everyone just wanted to know about

Leônidas and Domingos. One had scored two goals, the other had not let a single ball

past. The symbols of Brazilian football: Domingos and Leônidas.There was another:

Fausto. But Fausto was faraway, he had not competed in the Rio Branco Cup. So Do-

mingos and Leônidas grabbed all the attention. Especially Leônidas.

During the victory parade, it was impossible to walk down Rio Branco Avenue, it was

like the third day of Carnival. Leônidas was on the lowered hood of an automobile,

embracing the Rio Branco Cup. ‘Leônidas! Leônidas! Leônidas!’

809


At the 1938 World Cup, Leônidas was the star player of the Brazilian team.

The extent of his fame was such that some journalists claimed that “the most

famous man in Brazil was Leônidas da Silva, not Getúlio Vargas, the president

of Brazil” (Ribeiro, 2010: 112). On the team’s return to the country:

The Brazilian squad would arrive in a city, the shops would close, and people would

swarm into the street to carry Leônidas in triumph. The other players were inside the

automobiles, the automobiles drove slowly, at funeral pace, accompanying the Leôni-

das procession. And everyone thought that they were paying tribute to the Brazilian

team. All the players turned up, but the tribute was for Leônidas, just for Leônidas to

receive medals, baskets of flowers, club banners, Brazilian flags. The others watched

on, squeezed into a room bursting with people, as though they weren’t players (Rodri-

gues Filho, 2010: 219).

When they arrived in Recife, the Brazilian stars were greeted by a crowd

of Pernambuco fans. Amid the players, it was Leônidas who would receive the

main tributes. As the newspaper O Globo reported: “Leônidas, the ‘Black Dia-

mond,’ who shone on the European pitches, was carried in the arms of the

people, who, with great demonstrations of enthusiasm, accompanied the soc-

cer stars at the Grande Hotel. In front of the hotel a large rally is being held by

the sports institutions with the participation of all the social classes.”12 In Rio

de Janeiro, the fans came to meet Leônidas, all of them wanting to touch him

and receive a hug or an autograph from the Black Diamond. Led from the port

docks to the Botafogo ground, he was greeted by the fans in a tumult of people,

which led to the player fainting, surrounded and squeezed by the crowd (Ribei-

ro, 2010). Even after a few days had passed, the euphoria of the fans had not

waned. More and more people were went after the star, asking for autographs

and making all kinds of requests. What became apparent was that wherever

he went, Leônidas drew large crowds, especially the ‘young women,’ who, when

they passed by the star: “Stopped, looked at Leônidas, and then carried on their

way up and down the avenue, content, as though they had seen a cinema idol”

(Rodrigues Filho, 2010: 212).

Indeed the idolization of Leônidas was such that the star received a

series of prizes. For example, he won a car after winning first place in a com-

petition run by Magnólia cigarettes, the most popular cigarette of the period.

Launched in September 1937, the idea behind the competition was to choose

Rio de Janeiro’s most popular soccer player. To take part, fans had to buy a pack

of the cigarette brand, write the name of the player of their preference and send

it to the manufacturer. In the campaign for the prize, Leônidas distributed bal-

lot boxes throughout the city13 and encouraged people to buy Magnólia ciga-

rettes: “I want to make a suggestion. I think my idea’s a good one. I want Fla-

mengo’s members and fans to send me just one empty pack of ‘Magnólia’ each

week. As you know, the number of Flamengo fans is huge and a pack from each

one, added up in the end, will be enough for my Chevrolet. The rest is easy.”14

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Among other schemes, he came up with an unusual idea to boost his chances

of victory in the competition: “Leonidas was the star who had the laudable

initiative of visiting the Detention Centre to distribute ‘Magnólia’ cigarettes,

which friends who did not smoke sent him.”15 Leônidas’s popularity was unri-

valled and the Flamengo fanbase was already the largest in the city. The end

result: almost 300,000 cigarette packs with the name of the star, who won the

competition easily (Ribeiro, 2010).

With his newfound prestige, Leônidas began to give talks throughout the

country in which he recounted the goals scored in the 1938 World Cup and spoke

about Brazilian football. The first was held in the João Caetano Theatre in Rio de

Janeiro. Announcing the event, Jornal dos Sports reported: “The ‘Black Diamond’

will describe to his fans in detail the seven goals that he scored masterfully over

the course of the ‘Coupe du Monde.’”16 O Globo reported that: “A unique show will

provide the festive occasion tonight at the João Caetano Theatre, sponsored by

Leonidas, in order to raise funds for the Union of Blind People of Brazil.”17 The

newspaper also reported that the second part of the show would feature Ary

Barroso, who would be accompanied by some of the big names from Brazilian

music and radio, like Benedito Lacerda and Carlos Galhardo. Days later, another

talk was given by the football star to the public of Belo Horizonte. Procópio Fer-

reira organized the event and covered all the expenses. Leônidas received half

of the revenue. In the first part of the talk, he read a text written by his friend

and journalist José Maria Scassa; next he drew all seven goals scored in the

World Cup on a blackboard located on the centre of the stage. That night Leôni-

das wore a smoking jacket offered by Sapataria Capital as part of an advertising

campaign (Ribeiro, 2010).

As happens with celebrities today, the striker participated actively in the

advertising market and in the promotion of sales and business. First were the store

openings. Every establishment wanted the presence of the biggest idol of Brazilian

soccer as a way to boost their sales. And Leônidas went to various. He “would lose

ten minutes, the time needed to take a photograph, open a bottle of champagne,

in the inauguration of a shoe shop, [paid] a pocketful of gold” (Rodrigues Filho,

2010: 221). The 1938 World Cup success, which turned Leônidas into a national

celebrity, led to diverse tributes from commercial establishments, which sought to

associate their products with the star’s image. These episodes were frequently

reported in the press; as in the report “A gift to Leonidas: the offer from Fabrica

Metallurgica Brasileira,” published by O Globo newspaper:

The brilliant performances of Leonidas in the games that our team played in the Old

World, established him as one of the world’s most perfect footballers. This fact gene-

rated exceptional enthusiasm in our country, and various stores, excited by the re-

markable feat of the ‘Black Diamond,’ have offered him gifts, which will be delivered

when he returns to Rio. Fabrica Metallurgica Brasileira, associating itself with these

tributes, has just offered the Flamengo player a chrome lamp with a green porcelain

811


spotlight, suitable for an office, which is on display in one of the windows of its store

at Rua da Carioca 53.18

The tributes presented to the star in exchange for advertising were con-

stant. The report “A regal present for Leonidas: Offered to the glorious football

star by the firm J. M. Mello & Cia, a famous bathroom set of green porcelain”19

informed readers that “The famous ‘Hornberg’ set was offered to Leonidas in a

demonstration of recognition of the great achievements of our glorious ‘scorer.’”

1

Report on the present offered by J. M. Mello & Cia

to the football star Leônidas

Source: O Globo, 18 August 193

1

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Another example was reported in the news story “For Leonidas the ‘Para-

gon’ chronograph.”20 “As we have been reporting, Messrs. Coimbra & Fuah, rep-

resentatives for Brazil of the famous ‘Paragon’ watches, offered an expensive

‘Paragon’ chronograph to the player who scored the first goal for Brazil in the

‘Copa Roca’ match (...) Leonidas, the centre-forward for Flamengo, won the valu-

able ‘Paragon’ chronograph, which will be handed to him at the Jornal dos Sports

newsroom.”

In response to all these actions and the constant pressures from the

brands, Leônidas ended up making some free adverts for stores and companies.

The soccer star saw no difference between giving his autograph and signing a

paper for a friend asking him for this favour. As a result, he ended up lending

his name to diverse adverts without requesting any kind of fee for use of his

image. On one such occasion, “the entrepreneur Manoel de Brito asked Leônidas

to sign a declaration saying that he only ate Peixe guava sweet. The advert was

in all the newspapers, taking up at least a quarter page” (Ribeiro, 2010: 134) and

the payment was a box of guava sweet for Leônidas (see next page).

At the height of his fame, Leônidas was advised by José Maria Scassa. The

latter explained that giving autographs or writing messages in supporter albums

or those belonging to female fans was something he could do. But signing an

advert for a product was work for which he should be duly remunerated, since

the companies were using his image and popularity to make large sums of

money. Leônidas not only agreed with Scassa, he invited the journalist to nego-

tiate his advertising contracts. This was the first time that a Brazilian footballer

would be employed as an official garoto-propaganda, a ‘poster boy,’ for companies,

products and services (Ribeiro, 2010). It was probably at this moment too that

the figure of the agent or entrepreneur emerged, responsible for the commercial

contracts of sports celebrities. One of the first contracts signed was with Lacta,

which, soon after the 1938 World Cup, decided to launch the Diamante Negro

(Black Diamond) chocolate, making use of the player’s nickname. Like any con-

temporary celebrity, in this context, the name or nickname of Leônidas was

capable of selling anything, including chocolates (see page 814):

Ary Silva, present at the meeting, saw the magnate pay money for the use of

Leônidas’s nickname for one of his chocolates. This detail is important as it shows

that use of the Diamante Negro label by the chocolate factory was made with the

player’s consent, even though Lacta has frequently been accused of never giving

anything to Leônidas. Ary Silva does not know how much, he recalls that some spoke

about 2 contos, but one thing he is certain about, he saw Leônidas receive a ‘fistful’ of

money from the hands of the magnate. The São Paulo journalist also saw Leônidas

sign a contract that would entitle him to receive a share of the sales of Diamante

Negro chocolate (Ribeiro, 2010: 135).

813


2

Advertisement for Peixe Guava Sweet

using the image of Leônidas

Source: Jornal dos Sports, 12 July 1938

2

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3

Advertisement for Diamante Negro chocolate

Source: O Globo, 22 December 1938

3

815


In another example, the Sudan Company, the country’s largest cigarette

manufacturer in the 1930s and 1940s, paid 15 contos for the right to print Leô-

nidas’s name on its cigarettes. On this occasion, the news item “‘Diamante Negro’

dispatches to São Paulo today,”21 published in Jornal dos Sports, reported that the

player would receive tributes in the São Paulo capital and would head to Campi-

nas, where the business magnate Sabbado D’Angelo would offer him the spon-

sorship of Leonidas cigarettes, created in honour of the star player. During the

same period, a watch with his name was launched on the market (Ribeiro, 2010).

4 Advertisement for Leonidas cigarettes

Source: O Globo, 5 September 1938

4

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These examples reveal that in order to lure consumers, the advertising

market in the 1930s and 1940s sought to associate products, stores and brands

with the image of Brazil’s leading sports celebrity: the striker Leônidas. From

the perspective of the anthropology of consumption, we argue that goods func-

tion as both walls and bridges, since they are bearers of meaning and can be

used both for inclusion in spaces and groups and for exclusion of the undesired.

Relating with each other, goods construct meanings, enable social relations

and represent identities and lifestyles (Douglas & Isherwood, 2004). In this sense,

advertising acts in accordance with the logic of totemic systems – which create

similarities and differences between opposing spheres – and mediate between

production and consumption in order to confer meaning to goods (Rocha, 1985).

Advertising makes use of diverse strategies: one of them involves appropriating

the prestige of celebrities and associating their public images with the products

offered to consumers (McCracken, 2012), investing in a ‘prestigious imitation’

(Mauss, 1974). It is this system of consumption in action that we see being

deployed for the first time with soccer in the case of Leônidas.

There were countless advertisements for products, services and stores,

inaugurations, participations in social festivities or marketing campaigns rub-

berstamped with the prestige obtained by playing football. Brazil’s incipient ‘star

system’ began to include agents who did not come from the traditional model

of art, politics or the media. A black footballer who was just as popular as Presi-

dent Getúlio Vargas was a significant novelty, one until then unknown in Brazil-

ian society. Competing in commercial activities outside the sports profession

properly speaking with people like Ary Barroso, Mário Lago, Linda Batista, Paulo

Gracindo, Carmen Miranda, Procópio Ferreira or Grande Otelo implied a signifi-

cant transformation in the markets – a signal that they were expanding, opening

up new models for perpetuating themselves and including new agents.

Leônidas was a figure who, though he did not create, was nonetheless

a catalyser of many things. Three of them stand out clearly in his trajectory. On

the pitch, undoubtedly, moments as stunning as the elastic movement of his

bicycle kick or the skilful dribbling that transformed the opponent’s certainties

into an optical illusion. Off the pitch, he catalysed experiences, identities and

ideologies of Brazilianness for which his body became a canvas and to which

his soccer exploits gave consistency and concreteness. In the marketplace, he

inaugurated the idea that a specific skill on a particular stage – football – could

be used to sell things as disparate or paradoxical as cigarettes, watches or

chocolates. Moreover, Leônidas and his circumstances defined a type of space

in culture – one authorized by the celebrity seal of approval – that ceased there-

after to be limited to artists, actors and singers and became accessible to sports

professionals in Brazil too. Until Leônidas, there were no sports celebrities.

Before him no money circulated in the sports universe beyond what was ob-

tained from the practice itself, no prestige beyond the small amount offered

817


only by the initiated. After Leônidas, sport in Brazil acquired a new significance

as business. Since then and especially in the present, what was incipient has

become responsible for producing all kinds of celebrities and multiple markets

that sustain and are sustained by them.

Received on 24/4/2017 | Revised on 4/9/2017 | Approved on 6/9/2017

Everardo Rocha is Associate Professor of the Postgraduate

Program in Communications of PUC-Rio, a CNPq level 1D

researcher, participant of the FAPERJ Our State Scientist

program,and holder of an MA (1982) and PhD (1989) in

anthropology from PPGAS/Museu Nacional/UFRJ. He is the

author of diverse books, among them Magia e capitalismo: um

estudo antropológico da publicidade (1985); A sociedade do sonho:

comunicação, cultura e consumo (1985); Representações do consumo:

estudos sobre a narrativa publicitária (2006); and O paraíso do

consumo: Émile Zola, a magia e os grandes magazines (2016).

William Corbo is a doctoral student in Communications on the

Postgraduate Program in Communications of PUC-Rio, a

substitute professor of the Department of Sociology at IFCS/

UFRJ and co-author of the book O paraíso do consumo: Émile Zola,

a magia e os grandes magazines (2016).

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NOTES

1 In newspaper reports from the 1930s and 1940s, the name

Leônidas appears without the circumflex accent (Leoni-

das). Despite this fact, we have opted to write his name

with an accent as it appears in the studies consulted for

this article.

2 The question of Leônidas being a black player in an envi-

ronment rife with racial prejudices, football included, has

already been studied by Gordon (1995), Pereira (2000) and

Souza (2008), among others, as well as the classic O negro

no futebol brasileiro, by Mário Rodrigues Filho (2010). In the

case of the present article, another aspect of Leônidas’s

trajectory will be emphasized: his immense success in

advertising and the impact he had on Brazilian culture

in general.

3 For a wide-ranging review of studies of consumption, in-

cluding works by historians, see Rocha, Frid & Corbo

(2016).

4 O Globo, 15 January 1934.

5 The dispute between amateurism and professionalism

was intense in the context of Brazilian football in the

1930s. Consequently, the Brazilian national squad was as-

sembled in improvised form for the 1934 World Cup.

6 Numerous explanations exist for the emergence of the

nickname Diamante Negro (Black Diamond). In a state-

ment to the newspaper Última Hora in 1964, Leônidas con-

firmed the idea that the French had invented this nick-

name after his standout performance in the 1938 World

Cup. However, earlier newspaper items, such as the issue

of Jornal dos Sports published on December 7th, 1932 already

acclaimed Leônidas as the Black Diamond.

7 O Globo, 7 July 1938.

8 O Globo, 28 June 1938.

9 The 1938 World Cup would be the last featuring Leônidas,

since the two following editions – 1942 and 1946 – were

suspended due to the Second World War.

10 O Globo, 11 April 1937.

11 O Globo, 24 June 1938.


819


13 Jornal dos Sports, 10 December 1937.

14 Jornal dos Sports, 26 October 1937.

15 Jornal dos Sports, 3 February 1938

16 Jornal dos Sports, 23 July 1938.



19 O Globo, 18 August 1938.

20 Jornal dos Sports, 19 February 1940.

21 Jornal dos Sports, 24 July 1938.

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o CraQUe da BoLa e o mUndo dos Bens:

fUteBoL e ConsUmo na imaGem pÚBLiCa

de Leônidas da siLva

Resumo

Este trabalho analisa o lugar ocupado por Leônidas da Sil-

va no mercado publicitário nas décadas de 1930 e 1940,

auge de sua carreira como jogador de futebol. Trata-se de

investigar as formas pelas quais, naquele contexto, consu-

mo e narrativa publicitária se apropriaram do futebol para

expandir hábitos de compra e, simultaneamente, aumentar

a popularidade e potencializar a dimensão espetacular do

esporte. Leônidas era uma celebridade da época e, como

tal, inaugurou lojas, estrelou anúncios, foi garoto-propa-

ganda de algumas marcas e emprestou seu nome para pro-

dutos de sucesso. A construção de sua figura midiática

revela um modelo de articulação entre esporte e consumo

que, gestado na primeira metade do século XX, segue per-

meando o imaginário contemporâneo em um processo de

transformação de craques do “universo do futebol” em es-

trelas do “mundo dos bens”.

a star pLaYer and the WorLd of Goods:

soCCer and ConsUmption in the pUBLiC imaGe

of Leônidas da siLva

Abstract

This work analyses the place occupied by Leônidas da

Silva in the advertising market of the 1930s and 1940s, when

he was at the peak of his career as a football player. We

investigate how consumer habits and advertising narratives

appropriated soccer in order to expand purchasing conven-

tions and increase the sport’s popularity and entertainment

potential. Leonidas was a celebrity during this era and, like

other celebrities, he would inaugurate stores, feature in

adverts for various brands and lend his name to successful

products – such as ‘Cigarro Leônidas’ and ‘Diamante Negro.’

The construction of his media image reveals a model of

articulation between sports and consumption that took

form in the first half of the twentieth century and contin-

ues to permeate the contemporary imagination, transform-

ing outstanding footballers into stars of the ‘world of goods.’

Palavras-chave

Consumo e narrativa

publicitária;

fama e celebridade;

Leônidas da Silva;

cultura brasileira;

história do consumo.

Keywords

Consumption and

advertising narratives;

fame and celebrity;

Leônidas da Silva;

Brazilian culture;

history of consumption.

a star player and the world of goods: … · as two phenomena central to our social experience, ......

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